Support for war shows our alienation and longing for meaning

Indian Express

27-06-2025

Written by Shibashis Chatterjee
We claim to value peace, prosperity, and rational dialogue, so why does war continue to hold sway? The romanticisation, justification, and even mild appreciation of war in the public imagination, protests, and media appear to be on the rise globally — why? To resolve this apparent paradox, we must reconsider both the geopolitical and security contexts, as well as the fundamental principles involved. Examining Hegel, Carl Schmitt, and the Frankfurt School reveals the philosophical roots of a paradox: Rapid societal change is frequently accompanied by war despite its horrors. The destructive power draws many to it.
Hegel viewed history not as a tranquil progression but as a dialectical process of contradiction and resolution leading to human freedom. War, for Hegel, was not merely destruction; it was a crucible. Hegel, in his 'Philosophy of Right', argued that war was necessary for a nation's ethical health, a moment where the nation's ethical core is strengthened and the state's sovereignty over mere materialism is proven. War is perceived as the ultimate solution in cultures experiencing prolonged economic, moral, or existential stagnation. It vows to shatter the numbness of liberal modernity. In a political culture that prizes technocratic control, turning citizens into consumers and politics into management, war appears as the violent yet necessary reconfiguration of history as a moment of negation with the promise of renewal.
The attractiveness of war in certain areas is, in part, due to a penchant for dialectical change. For the disheartened worker in a decaying rustbelt town, the post-colonial youth yearning for redemption, and the ideologue craving purpose, war symbolises not only destruction but potentially rebirth. While bombs are falling, there is an illusion of becoming, of overcoming inertia through rupture.
Prominent Weimar jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt famously asserted that the core of politics lies in the differentiation between friend and enemy. He argued that liberal democracies attempt to manage political conflict by prioritising existing norms, procedures, and negotiations above fundamental challenges to their survival. He cautioned, however, that such stringent measures are unsustainable in the long term. Sooner or later, the political returns with a vengeance.
This action is not merely a moral compromise that communities make with the state. It speaks to our yearning for community in today's isolated world. The ascension of ethnonationalism, the glorification of military sacrifice, and the acceptance of aggressive foreign policy all demonstrate a widespread yearning for decisive action in high-stakes political situations. It is becoming increasingly clear that liberalism suffers from a lack of political coherence and an incapacitating fear of conflict. Liberal democracies, while ostensibly committed to these principles, are now engaging in a form of illiberal militarism justified by appeals to national renewal. Hence, it turns out that war is not just a matter of geopolitics; it is a psycho-political performance in which fragmented societies attempt to reunite by targeting other conflicted societies.
The Frankfurt School, particularly figures such as Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse, offered a radical critique of the psychological and cultural functioning of late capitalism. What capitalist societies, in the end, managed to do was not resolve this discontent but sublimate it in the form of entertainment, commodification, and some form of superficial mass political participation. In advanced capitalism, war is then a spectacle experienced not through conscription but through consumption. Social media, Hollywood blockbusters, live-streamed combat, and video games make war a readily consumed commodity. It is not a sense of emotional shutdown but an unsettling and heightened sensitivity to feelings. Aestheticising war, pulling away to get caught up in the idea of it, paradoxically stirs up intense, if disturbing, feelings.
The Frankfurt School would argue that war substitutes for the revolutionary energies that modernism suppresses. Only war can truly shatter a society that hides deep-seated inequalities behind a façade of consumerism and democracy. It is the negative dialectic let loose that roots not for freedom but for destruction. The significance of war as a moral economy cannot be understated; it provides purpose, engagement, and strength in an increasingly isolated and lost world. One of the things that makes war so seductive is the illusion of moral clarity. Even in times of peace, we face complex moral challenges, including systemic injustice, exclusion, and environmental damage. War, by contrast, simplifies. It reduces ambiguity in performance. It converts misdirected resentments into focused rage.
Hegel's understanding of history was a battle of spirits. Schmitt insisted we ignore distractions to concentrate on pure, unadulterated politics and accept sovereignty in its fullness. The Frankfurt School warned us long ago that modern society would eventually gag on its dreams. Amongst them, they help us understand why more and more people in the world today are not simply willing to tolerate war but have come to support it. In different ways, these perspectives remind us that violence is not an innate human trait. Their frustration is rooted in the tediousness of the current system, which discourages innovation and critical thinking.
The cruel irony is that the very war that holds out salvation causes despair. It consumes the same communities it claims to liberate, destroying the values it supposedly champions. Yet, reason is insufficient to combat resentment, alienation, and historical longing. To counteract the seductive power of war, societies need to address not just the material roots of discontent but also deeper philosophical and emotional voids. They need other ways to find meaning, purpose, and fulfilment, ways that do not depend on having an enemy on whom we can focus our collective fury. Until that happens, war will not only be championed by conflicted states but also celebrated in the depths of the popular mind. Ultimately, the return to war is not about the vengeance of geopolitics. It is profoundly about us, our alienation and longing for meaning, and our unhappiness with the world we inhabit. If war were solely Clausewitzian, we need not worry, but as Michel Foucault taught us, politics is war by different means.
The writer teaches at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and was the Eugenio Lopez Visiting Chair at the Department of International Studies and Political Science at Virginia Military Institute, US